Neue Räume (new spaces), Berlin

Neue Räume is an initiative of the architects Petra Schriever and Doris Kleilein in cooperation with different schools in Berlin to engage schoolchildren in the process of designing their learning environment.
Currently a lot of german schools have a space problem: The government wants to change them into whole-day schools, but most school buildings lack any kind of space that are not traditional classrooms – spaces to play and invent, spaces for recreation and creativity, spaces that inspire and support children.
Neue Räume offers school children to participate in all phases of the design process: Documenting the given situation, analysing needs and wishes, finding ideas and realising them. Thereby children not only improve their skills but become conscious of their built environment and their ability to change it. The decision process is always a transparent one and integrates students as well as teachers, parents, caretakers and other local people.
Projects include among others a school yard design at the State International School Berlin-Charlottenburg and an outdoor-sitting landscape at the Descartes High School in Berlin- Hohenschönhausen, a prefab housing district in the former East. The initiative is supported by local councils and the foundation “Aktion Mensch“.